The present disclosure relates to blow molding. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to air cartridge devices for use in conjunction with blow molding apparatuses.
Blow molding machines can produce plastic articles such as bottles and packages in a wide variety of shapes for diverse applications. For example, blow molding machines can make heat resistant bottles, wide mouth packages and flat or complex shaped bottles. The current practice for blowing a bottle using a typical blow molding machine is that a portion of the blow molding machine is lowered and seals on top of a split mold cavity. High pressure compressed air (30 to 40 bars) is directed through a large cavity that is part of the blowing inlet cylinder and blowing nozzle outlet of the blow molding machine and into a heated preformed bottle to form the final bottle. Once the bottle is formed, the high pressure air in the bottle, blowing cylinder and nozzle cavity is exhausted to the atmosphere. This practice is very inefficient because the volume of high pressure compressed air used to form the bottle is over two times the actual volume of the bottle, and the ability to maintain a seal on top of the split mold is ineffective. A higher amount of energy is also required to fill the entire pressurized volume of the blowing cylinder and nozzle cavity.